I'm snowed-in at my good friend Ricardo's (drummer in Many Arms) place in Philadephia. We have a good 2 feet of snow barricading us in, with the flakes continuing to fall, so I thought I might take a moment to upload some pictures onto Facebook of our snowy travels thus far. We're still slated to play tonight at the Highwire Gallery, if we can dig out our cars.
Here's a link to the album:
Facebook Photo Album
Labels: highwire gallery, philadelphia, snow
I'm really excited to let you know that I will be embarking on my 2010 "SOLO" RELEASE TOUR making stops in Washington DC, Frederick, MD, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Seattle, Oakland, Tacoma, Olympia, and Portland. I'm going to be playing songs from my album SOLO along with a bunch of new tunes I've been working on.
And, for those interested in purchasing "SOLO", its going to be release digitally on February 16th from many distributors including iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, and many more. I can also mail copies, just send me an email at johnnybutlerjazz@gmail.com.
*****2010 SOLO RELEASE TOUR DATES*****
Feb. 4 [WASHINGTON, DC] @ Bossa Bistro & Lounge w/ Many Arms 2463 18th St. NW
Feb. 5 [FREDERICK, MD] @ TBA w/Many Arms
Feb. 6 [PHILADELPHIA, PA] @ Highwire Gallery w/Many Arms - 2040 Frankford Ave.
Feb. 7 [BROOKLYN, NY] @ Public Assembly w/ Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, Afuche, Many Arms - 70 N 6th St.
Feb. 15 [OAKLAND, CA] @ The Ivy Room - 860 San Pablo Ave
Feb. 17 [TACOMA, WA] @ Bob’s Java Jive - 2102 South Tacoma Way
Feb. 18 [SEATTLE, WA] @ High Dive w/ M Bison HAS BEEN MOVED. LOCATION TBA
Feb. 19 [SEATTLE, WA] @ Egan’s Ballard Jam House with Special Guest JEFF GRANT!- 1707 Northwest Market Street
Feb. 20 [PORTLAND, OR] @ Dunes w/ With Eyes Abstract, Jezebel Spirit, Noah Bernstein- 1909 Northeast M L King Boulevard
Feb. 21 [OLYMPIA, WA] @ Le Voyeur w/ Margaret Rhodes Butler - 404 E 4th Ave
Mar. 5 [NEW YORK, NY] @ The Parkside Lounge w/Captain Irascible- 317 E Houston
Labels: aweseomness, laptop, Solo, tour
Check out this video of Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds taken last Friday, Jan. 8th at the Canal Room. My first time doing a little bari intro to one of our new tunes "Crawdaddies." The sound is a little over-driven, but you can still feel the energy of the packed house.
Myspace.com/sistersparrowandthedirtybirds
Thanks to Laurel for filming these videos taken at my solo show last Monday, January 4th, 2010 at Zebulon!
Enjoy!
-Johnny
Labels: Momma Bear, Solo, Song in A, Zebulon
I just came across this really interesting article on the biology of music. The basic idea is that we humans choose to like music similar to human speech - which eventually leads us to like seven note scales and rock music. I would argue that a lot of listening habits come from decades of conditioning, but that's for another blog entry.
Check out this bit by Dr. Dale Purves, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology at Duke University. The key, Purves said, lies in our evolutionary history:
"Any perceptual quality you have is there for some biological reason. They evolved because they provide useful information to us," he said. "So if you take a microphone out in nature and ask what the tonal sounds are in our environmental niche that we would have evolved to appreciate, the tonal sounds you record are nearly all animal vocalizations. And the ones that count the most are the vocalizations of other humans."
Boingboing.net Article
Full Length Essay by Dr. Purves and Dr. Gill
Sonia's Party and the EveryOne'sInvited Band Tonight (and every Wednesday in Nov.) @ Rockwood Music Hall!! And on a totally unrelated note: The Peeriodic Table of Illusions!
I just put my new saxophone and laptop album "Solo" up on my myspace page (myspace.com/johnnybutlerjazz). I put a lot of myself into that album, so I hope you enjoy.
In a couple of weeks, I'm going to make the whole album available for FREE download from this site. If you'd like the real thing, I'm also going to start selling hard copies here, too.
-Johnny